Statistics Colloquium

Nielsen

Modern Statistical Methods for Audience Measurement

Nielsen Media Research tracks consumers in over 100 countries. In the United States, a number of Nielsen panels exist within the population to estimate television, radio, and digital audiences. The construction, maintenance, and final reports of these panels require a number of survey statistical operations, including sampling, weighting, imputation, & variance estimation.

 

A variety of interesting problems arise that requires more novel methods. The measurement of specific advertising campaigns involves Bayesian methods. The instability of some radio and television audience estimates calls for various smoothing algorithms, including those referred to as Small Area or Indirect estimates. Finally, the immense amount of data related to internet audiences, advertising, and App use necessitates Big Data methods for analysis.

 

An overview of the statistical methods used for both operations as well as current research will be presented.